While flu activity across the country is picking up and plenty of people are experiencing influenza’s nasty grip, this season is playing out so far in a milder fashion than last year’s, said Dr. Alicia Fry, branch chief for epidemiology in CDC’s Influenza Division.

“Right now none of our indicators for this time of year … are anywhere near the range they were last year,” Fry told STAT. She cautioned, though, that that doesn’t mean people should be cavalier about influenza this winter. “Where this season will turn up we just don’t know yet.”

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This is the first year in which the CDC is issuing estimates on the toll of a flu season while it is still in progress. In the past, these estimates, which are derived using mathematical models, were published once per season, after the flu activity had subsided.

The plan is to issue weekly estimates of how many people have been sickened by influenza, how many went to a doctor for care, and how many became so sick they were admitted to hospital.

These types of figures are easier for people to understand than some of the metrics found in the CDC’s weekly update on influenza activity, FluView, Fry explained.

Drawing on surveillance data from across the country, FluView reports on of things like the percentage of people tested for flu who were actually infected with the virus and the percentage of visits to doctors that are for flu-like illness.

But the general public may not grasp the significance of the fact that in the last week of December, for instance, 4.1 percent of doctors office visits were for influenza-like symptoms. This week’s report — estimating that between 2.9 million and 3.5 million people have been to a doctor so far this season because they have the flu — makes more sense, officials believe. “It’s easier for people to understand,” Fry said.

Both FluView and the new weekly estimates of the toll the flu season is taking will be posted weekly on the CDC’s website on Friday mornings.

When the Medical Industry began endorsing “Alternative Medicine,” they signed the death warrants for a lot of Americans. Now we have all kinds of “Alternative Practitioners” selling “Alternatives” for Flu Shots. Thanks to the ideology of “The Healthcare Marketplace” a lot of people will die, due to this misinformation campaign. Whole industries of Chiropractors, Accupuncturists, and Quack Healers, make a good living telling people they can sell an alternative. A couple of years ag, we had a measles outbreaks, and parent were buying Homeopahtind Remidies to avoid innocculating their children. Scince and Facts are no longer relevant!